Authorities have arrested a Des Moines man…he’s accused of taking part in the disturbance at the U.S. Capitol building last Wednesday. Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek says officers assisted the FBI in arresting 41-year-old Doug Jensen on Friday night at his home on the city’s south side. He was booked into the Polk County Jail early Saturday on five federal charges. Video posted online during the conflict Wednesday showed a man who appears to be Jensen, who is white, pursuing a black officer up a flight of stairs as a mob trails behind. The officer says “get back” several times, to no avail.
A white man who drove his car through a crowd of racial injustice protesters in Iowa City this past summer, hitting many of them, will avoid prison and have the incident erased from his record if he stays out of trouble for three years. A judge has granted a deferred judgment for 45-year-old Michael Ray Stepanek, who told police he drove his car through the crowd in August because protesters needed “an attitude adjustment.” The sentence means Stepanek will have a felony charge of willful injury resulting in bodily injury dismissed and expunged if he does not commit a crime or fail to follow other provisions during a three-year term of probation.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds ended spectator limits on sports and recreational gatherings as of Friday. Reynolds announced the day before that she would end restrictions on the number of fans who can attend high school and other sporting events. Spectators still must wear masks and adhere to social distancing rules at indoor events. Before the change, schools could only allow two spectators for each athlete.
A federal judge says the state of Iowa must pay more than $4.9 million in fees to attorneys who sued over treatment of juvenile boys at the Eldora Boys State Training School. Former students at the school and advocacy groups sued the state in 2017, contending the center used inhumane methods to control the boys. Judge Stephanie Rose ruled last year that the methods were “torture” and ordered the facility to change. The plaintiffs did not seek any monetary damages. The state then argued that the plaintiffs’ attorneys fees were inflated. Judge Rose ruled this past week that attorneys were due all but $10,000 of the amount they had sought.
A former Iowa trash collection official has been sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution of more than $1.6 million. Federal prosecutors in Des Moines say Jeffrey Dworek of Urbandale was sentenced last Friday to 57 months in prison after entering a plea of guilty last August to one count of federal mail fraud. Dworek had been the director of operations for the Metro Waste Authority from 1996 until he resigned in 2017. He was arrested and indicted two years after that. Prosecutors say he set up a shell company purported to provide services to Metro Waste Authority, then paid out company funds for his own use between 2012 and 2017. He also took kickbacks from various vendors.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says Conservation Officer Steve Reighard died from COVID-19 this past week. A spokesperson with the DNR said Reighard is believed to be the first Iowa law enforcement officer to die from the coronavirus. He was a Conservation Officer in Spirit Lake in Dickinson County in northwest Iowa.
State investigators say a man who was found dead at his home in rural Vinton a little more than a week ago died of hypothermia. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says 84-year-old James Bright’s death was accidental. His body was found at his home the morning of January 2nd.
An Iowa inmate serving a 30-year prison sentence from Buchanan County has died in custody. The Iowa Department of Corrections says 70-year-old William Gibson died Friday at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville due to natural causes–not COVID-related. He began serving his sentence on December 20, 2019 for being a habitual offender from Buchanan County.
